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Martin Potter

Rainham North’s Conservative councillors appear to have begun their fight against a new football stadium being built in their ward.

Gillingham Football Club Chairman Paul Scally called on fans to write in support of the Mill Hill site being pencilled in as the location of a future 25,000-seat stadium during Medway Council’s Local Plan consultation.

The consultation document itself is relatively mute on the subject of a new stadium, referring to the club only three times over its 132 pages:

The regeneration area would extend beyond Gillingham to include a modern football stadium for Gillingham Football Club at Mill Hill, supported by a mixed development of apartments, shops and wider leisure facilities. An iconic building would establish the new character of this area and mark the extent of the regeneration zone. – p23

Gillingham Football Club was established in 1893 and is based at Priestfield Stadium, Gillingham with a capacity of around 11,000. The stadium is within 0.5 miles of Gillingham Railway Station and is located in a predominantly residential area. The club has aspirations to upgrade its stadium and has actively been contemplating moving from its Priestfield site, developing this site for housing. The club has made representations to the council as part of the Local Plan process, promoting its interest to develop a new site at Mill Hill, Gillingham, that would involve a major new stadium supported by wider leisure, retail and residential development. – p86

Gillingham Football Club
The Council will work alongside Gillingham FC to develop an appropriate strategy to secure the club’s future development in Medway. – p89

Following Mr Scally’s decision to ask fans to write in support of the club, two local councillors, whose ward includes the Mill Hill site and surrounding area, have written to local residents, on Council-headed paper, urging them to make their own representations to the Council before the 18 April deadline.

Vaughan Hewett, then a UKIP councillor for the area, presented a 400-strong petition of local residents against a stadium in 2015 and promised to continue to oppose any such plans in that year’s local elections, which he lost.

Now it appears Councillors David Carr and Martin Potter, whilst striking a conciliatory tone in their letter, are ready to take up the mantle of a fight against both the ground and its enabling development.

The councillors’ letter comes as Mr Scally has written to selected households in Gillingham with free tickets for the Gillingham v Fleetwood match on 22 April, in what appears to be the start of a PR campaign in support of his future plans for the club, their new ground and the site of Priestfield Stadium, the club’s home since it’s formation in 1893.

Anyone who wishes to respond to the Local Plan consultation, whether on the stadium or any other matter, can do so either by email to futuremedway@medway.gov.uk or by post to Planning Policy team, the Planning Service, Medway Council, Gun Wharf, Dock Road, Chatham, Kent, ME4 4TR. The consultation closes at 5pm on Tuesday, 18 April.